


baby steps

by gladdecease



Category: Glee
Genre: Closeted Character, Community: prompt_in_a_box, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-25 14:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't come flying out of the closet covered in glitter and rainbows, but that doesn't mean he isn't <i>trying</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby steps

Okay, first off? Dave isn't Kurt. He sure as hell isn't Kurt's boyfriend either, or any of those flaming gay guys on TV. He's not _obvious_ , okay, and he doesn't want to be, not if that means being something he's not.

(And god, doesn't that sound hypocritical as hell. Like he hasn't been trying to be something he's not for _years_.)

He's a jock, okay? He likes football and hockey, and he privately thinks calculus is kind of fun. He _doesn't_ like fashion and he _doesn't_ like musicals, and if - _if_ \- he maybe kind of liked singing and dancing that one time it's because it was _fun_ , not because he's gay and it's some kind of requirement for the damn sexuality. Not that his friends will see it that way; they're as much jocks as he is, and things are pretty black and white where jocks are concerned. You're a guy or you're a girl, strong or weak; you're straight or you're gay, and all the stereotypes that come with it.

And since Dave doesn't exactly want to get beat up for being gay (well, really, for not being obvious about it, because it'll catch his friends off guard and that's what'll make them mad more than anything else), he's not planning on coming out in high school. Between sports and his brain he's got good odds at a big college, though, in a city with LGBT support groups and shit like that. Kurt's kind of a bitch, but he was right about one thing: Dave does need to be educated. He doesn't want to still be a homophobic closet case in college, or after it.

So over the summer he has to clear his browser history a lot, no big deal. He's educating himself here, and there's a lot of useful shit out there. Some of it he's not planning on sharing with _anyone_ , thank you very much, but he bookmarks a couple pages, thinking abstractly about his parents. And there's a few he almost bookmarks thinking about friends, before he remembers he's not coming out in high school. No literal gay-bashing for Dave, remember? That's the plan.

One page he keeps in mind just for himself. It's a calendar of LGBT events. Parades, holidays, stuff like that. He's not ready to go marching or anything - he's not coming flying out of the closet surrounded by confetti and covered in glitter and rainbows, that's way too gay for him - but that doesn't mean he isn't interested, isn't _trying_.

So he wears purple on October 20th (okay, it's just purple lettering on a jersey, but it still counts) and there's a little rainbow patch he took off his sister's old Girl Scout vest that he keeps in his pocket some days that makes him feel better. It's not much, but it's about as much as he can stand, when he still gets a little hint of a panic attack every time Cooper and the rest of the hockey team walk by.

Hey, any progress is good progress, right? That's what Dave keeps telling himself, anyway. One of these days, maybe it'll even be true.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "hiding" at [prompt_in_a_box](http://community.livejournal.com/prompt_in_a_box)'s October 2011 round.


End file.
